Try to imagine that you are bending your forefinger. At the same time
hold it straight. Your finger will actually tremble with the dammed-up
energy of the repressed impulse. But the finger will not actually
move, because the idea of its not moving is just as much a part of
your consciousness as the idea of its moving. Put out of your
consciousness this thought of the finger's not moving, and forthwith
the finger will bend.

Your conduct during your waking hours is thus always the result of
opposing forces, _some tending in one direction, others tending to
counteract the first._ Thus there comes about a great waste of mental
power and an appalling loss of individual efficiency.

[Sidenote: _Training for Mental "Team-Work"_]

In the language of sport, you are suffering from a lack of mental
"team work." The effect is the same as if the members of a football
team, instead of combining their forces against the opposing side,
should spend their time in restraining one another.

It requires but one step, and not a difficult one at that, to lead you
to the conclusion that the solution of this problem lies in having in
consciousness at any one moment only such ideas as harmonize. Let that
condition prevail, and the potential energies of all ideas in
consciousness must flow together in a broad stream of useful and
exhilarating activity.

[Sidenote: _Rust and the "Daily Grind"_]